Page:The future of Africa.djvu/59

Rh and degraded population around us, may at times strain it. Let us, amid all the extravagances of their crude state, guarantee, even them, the full advantage of it. Conscious of the nobleness of this caveat constitutional principle, may we allow it full force and unrestricted expression. Let us rejoice that our Republic, diminutive as it is in the group of nations, is already a refuge for the fugitive; and congratulate one another upon the fact that we can already apply to our state and position, the proud lines of Whittier:—

Let us endeavor, by the reading of their Journals; by close observation of that venturesome enterprise of theirs, which carries them from "beneath the Arctic circle, to the opposite region of Polar cold;"—by a careful inspection of their representatives, who visit these shores; and by a judicious imitation of their daring and activity; let us strive to catch and gain to ourselves somewhat the spirit of which characterizes them, in all their world-wide homes. Moreover, let us cultivate the principle of, both as a nation and as individuals, and in our children; as, in itself a needed element of character, as the great antidote to the deep slavishness of a three centuries' servitude, and as a corrective to the inactivity, the slothfulness, and the helplessness, which are gendered by a tropical clime. I am well aware of the exaggeration to which all men are liable to carry this sentiment; but this, in-